Arkansas Senator Pryor’s Troubles Continue to Mount

Liberal Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor has had a rough month. Polls show his credibility dropping, conservative opponents are beginning to stir, and now he has alienated Mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

In a veiled threat directed at Democratic Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas (shown), Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in his role as co-founder of the anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), said last Thursday that any lawmakers who are “going with the NRA” are “going against the lives of our children.” When asked directly if that meant that his group was going to target Pryor, the senior senator from Arkansas, Bloomberg sidestepped a direct answer:

What I have said is that we are going to support those people who want to stop the killing.... And I think you and I both have an obligation to do that.

The way you do that is to make sure that the elected officials understand that you’re gonna vote for somebody else.

And we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that somebody else gets elected who wants to see that we stop this carnage.

Pryor was one of four Democrats who voted against the background check bill that Bloomberg and his group supported. The others were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. During a meeting of top-level people in Bloomberg’s MAIG, those four were targeted for retribution; however, Heitkamp has just been elected to a six-year term, Begich’s seat was considered safe regardless, and Baucus had just announced his intention to retire. That left Pryor as the lone remaining target.

Several strategies were considered at that meeting, according to sources who remained anonymous, including targeting Democrat African Americans in Arkansas with ads complaining that Pryor was opposing the president’s “agenda.” Other targets considered in MAIG’s campaign to punish Pryor were suburban women and other moderates. "Money would not be an object” in that campaign, according to those sources.

The JBS Weekly Member Update offers activism tips, new educational tools, upcoming events, and JBS perspective. Every Monday this e-newsletter will keep you informed on current action projects and offer insight into news events you won't hear from the mainstream media.

Receive the latest updates from The John Birch Society. Learn about our national grassroots movement with 50 years of successes.